Mayday! Mayday!.....F550 is going down!!!!

My F550 went for a swim in one of the ponds located at the golf course that is close to my house. The F550 sank on Monday and was fished out yesterday (Wednesday) by the diver that goes to gather up golf balls. She came out pretty intact which the exception of the GoPro mount which snapped off but everything else was still there. She had that "I've been underwater look". for just being under for only 2 days. Unfortunately, the diver didn't call me right away since he didn't really know and by the time I got to her, she was pretty much dry. I would have like to have taken her from the pond to my house directly and start taking things apart to dry. The HERO3 seems to have survived but the lens is cloudy. Hopefully a simple lens replacement can correct that. Enjoy the video as you hear the final beats of her hear.

My F550 went for a swim in one of the ponds located at the golf course that is close to my house. The F550 sank on Monday and was fished out yesterday (Wednesday) by the diver that goes to gather up golf balls. She came out pretty intact which the exception of the GoPro mount which snapped off but everything else was still there. She had that "I've been underwater look". for just being under for only 2 days. Unfortunately, the diver didn't call me right away since he didn't really know and by the time I got to her, she was pretty much dry. I would have like to have taken her from the pond to my house directly and start taking things apart to dry. The HERO3 seems to have survived but the lens is cloudy. Hopefully a simple lens replacement can correct that. Enjoy the video as you hear the final beats of her hear.

I really don't know. My guess would be that prior to this I was splicing some wire to install a new FPV transmitter and a small piece of that may have gotten stuck in one of the motors. I say this because in the video which I didn't realize at the time one of the motors sounds distinctively different to me. That's just a guess since I did not find any loose wires from my recent work.

Looks like catapault failure to me, didn't get enough airspeed off the deck and stalled

Seriously though, I can't really tell from that what a likely cause might be. It looks like the NAZA was working its butt off to try to compensate for something, but it's hard to tell exactly what. I don't think it was simply a loss of a single motor or prop though...it would have just dipped a little bit for a second, then regained attitude and slowly autorotated while you retained most control.

In that clip, what motion of the aircraft was the last one that was in response to input from you?

Looks like catapault failure to me, didn't get enough airspeed off the deck and stalled

Seriously though, I can't really tell from that what a likely cause might be. It looks like the NAZA was working its butt off to try to compensate for something, but it's hard to tell exactly what. I don't think it was simply a loss of a single motor or prop though...it would have just dipped a little bit for a second, then regained attitude and slowly autorotated while you retained most control.

In that clip, what motion of the aircraft was the last one that was in response to input from you?

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Unfortunately, once it dipped behind he house I lost LOS. I had no idea it flew for a few more seconds after that until I saw the video clip. I can tell there is a distinct different sound in one of the motors. I have to do some more CSI and see what else I discover. I'm just about ready to test out the transmitter and see if it at least will turn on. The HERO3 seems okay...except for the cloudy lens. I know the lens can be changed so I may do that and just keep this as a back-up video cam if I can get it to look clear after replacing the lens.

It sure picked a crappy place to fall. Lots of ground to fall on but it zeroed in on that pond.

I'm not sure about the motor issue - heard a lot of work from the Naza trying to compensate for something... that caused a lot of fading and moaning. Maybe the motor seized but if it had, the Naza should have handled it. A double failure would cause a tumble. If the Naza came loose it would definitely cause weird things to happen. A member posted what happened to his 550 when the Naza was 90 degrees out (flopped on takeoff).

BTW: You might be able to save the motors. Take the bearings out and replace them (they aren't that expensive).

I am glad you can at least have a sense of humor about it now, maybe not at first, though. These things seem to have an affinity for water, I know of at least one or two others from another forum that played submarine as well. Hope you get back in the air soon. Maybe an RC boat doesn't look so bad now!

Seems like you lifted off just fine, cleared the house, and then gave it full forward stick. Is that right? Did you command full forward or was it out of control at that point?

U.M.

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FangsCPO said:

Everything was fine until it went over the house..........from that point on...it wasn't me.

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Silly question, but you've flown over that house before I'm sure, right? I'm just wondering if maybe their was some stray signals (WiFi router/repeater) in that home which possibly disrupted your signal?

I really don't know. My guess would be that prior to this I was splicing some wire to install a new FPV transmitter and a small piece of that may have gotten stuck in one of the motors. I say this because in the video which I didn't realize at the time one of the motors sounds distinctively different to me. That's just a guess since I did not find any loose wires from my recent work.

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I agree the moment you fired it up something sounded off to me in the motors or props so it's no wonder you went splash. Hopefully you'll be up and flying again soon. It could have been worse.

Surprisingly the HERO3 is working. I'm going to attached it to my Phantom and get a video from above to see how it does. The Spektrum Receiver was able to bind to the DX7s so that's a good sign.

I wish I had a way to test out the iOSD and the DJI gimbal but I only have version 1 of the Phantom. I'll see if I can figure something out or go and look on YouTube for someone who's done it.....step by step. I just don't want to wreck my perfectly good Phantom testing stuff out. :lol:

Yes. WiFi is 2.4 ghz in most cases. Flight control for everything DJI except Vision is 2.4 ghz. While you can have some luck - a noisy environment will screw things up There are LOTS of 2.4 ghz WiFis out there. In addition, this is why you shouldn't turn on the GoPro network when flying a non-Vision. It will interfere with the NAZA/WKM/A2 since it is ssitting on top of it.

I fly in my neighborhood a lot and there are six networks that I can see from my laptop. They are all inside houses and are not on boosters (except mine ;-}). Everything plays ok except I will occasionally get a swimming airplane - but usually it's ok.

On another tack - I ran the battery down on my 810 the other day (on purpose) - it didn't fail gracefully but swung in a circle and came down hard. It was almost identical to FangsCPO's video. However, I landed in soft grass and only had to change a prop and patch the gear - no splash. While the video does not show the angle (because of the gimbal) the airplane fell down almost onto its side. See video here: http://vimeo.com/93775025

Yes. WiFi is 2.4 ghz in most cases. Flight control for everything DJI except Vision is 2.4 ghz. While you can have some luck - a noisy environment will screw things up There are LOTS of 2.4 ghz WiFis out there. In addition, this is why you shouldn't turn on the GoPro network when flying a non-Vision. It will interfere with the NAZA/WKM/A2 since it is ssitting on top of it.

I fly in my neighborhood a lot and there are six networks that I can see from my laptop. They are all inside houses and are not on boosters (except mine ;-}). Everything plays ok except I will occasionally get a swimming airplane - but usually it's ok.

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Hmm.. that's good to know! I'll try finding and installing a Wi-Fi scanner on my laptop and phone so I can do a scan before flying. I live in a 80+ unit apartment [and every single one of them would have their own internet] so I guess that may be the cause of one of my flights to derp at the parking lot. Great, another thing to add to my pre-flight checklist! Thanks!

And yep, I make sure my GoPro doesn't have Wi-Fi on. But I'll make sure none of my other devices has their Wi-Fi up as well.